


Heaven, If You Sent Us Down

by SenpaiMarshmallow



Category: Captain America (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Boggarts are involved, Everyone Needs A Hug, Gen, Hogwarts Houses, How Do I Tag, Howard Stark Falls In A Lake, I'll try to get one in every week, Implied/Referenced Torture, Loss of Identity, Magic, Magic Warfare, Nick Fury teaches Defence Against The Dark Arts, Panic Attacks, Patronus, Picnics, Pierce and Zola will die horrible deaths because I HATE THEIR GUTS, Pietro Maximoff Lives, Poor Bucky, Poor Natasha, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Slow To Update, Steve will end up on ice, Sticks to Canon mostly, and then we get into Avengers and AoU, at some point, basically everything the existence of the Winter Soldier implies, cause there aren't enough of those already, he'll survive dammit, poor everyone really, poor steve, see nice stuff, tags will change as I think of more things, the villains are evil, there will be fluffy bits I promise, this will be bloody long, up to just after Winter Soldier
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-02
Updated: 2019-11-11
Packaged: 2020-10-05 07:16:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20484977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SenpaiMarshmallow/pseuds/SenpaiMarshmallow
Summary: So it's a Hogwarts AU. This is just because I wanted to play around with houses and Boggarts and Patroni, so . . . there has to be plot for that, right?Bonus: all the titles are from song lyrics. The first person to guess each song gets a request that I'll try to work in. Some will be easy. Some will be bloody tough. LET THE GAMES BEGIN!





	1. Remember Them Summer Days

Steve Rogers wasn’t always the Captain, one of the greatest heroes the wizarding world has ever known. He wasn’t always the man the Dark ran in fear from, defender of the weak, avenger of the fallen.  
No. Steve Rogers began life as a lonely, sickly Muggleborn, living in a run-down tenement apartment.  
When he was born, the doctors told his mother he wouldn’t survive. Mrs. Rogers, so recently widowed she still checked the mailbox for her husband’s letters, just out of habit, knew better. “He’ll be fine,” she’d say to doctors, to nurses, to herself. “He’s tough. He’s like his father.”  
Steve was four the first time Father Murphy gave him the last rites. He lay there gasping, tiny body shaking, eyes wide and confused as he tried to work out why he couldn’t breathe, but not crying. Refusing to cry.  
He was six when his mother bought him his first sketchbook. His first lines were smudged, wavering, but as he grew older he made them clearer, until he could create portraits so real the eyes shine with laughter through the charcoal, and the whole drawing seemed to breathe. But hardly anyone saw those pictures.  
He was seven when he met the boy who would become his best friend. High summer, lying in an alleyway, curled against the kicks pounding his sides, watching the mangy yellow dog he’d freed go scampering off into the sunset. Dimly he heard a shout from the alley mouth and the scuffling sounds of a fight, and then the kids kicking him were gone and a boy was walking towards him, wiping blood from his lip, hand out for Steve to take.  
“Hey, I’m Bucky.”  
“Steve.” A pause, “I could have handled that, you know.”  
“Sure you could.”  
He was nine when his mother died, struck by the same tuberculosis she treated at the hospital. He wasn’t allowed to see her. He sat with Bucky for hours on end outside the heavy quarantine door, while the other boys their age laughed and ran in the summer streets outside.  
She died, and the boys went together to her funeral, buttoned up in borrowed, ill-fitting suits and shepherded by Bucky’s mother, Winifred Barnes, who carried a handkerchief pressed to her eyes. The two women had been good friends. Steve hardly stayed long enough to see his mother’s coffin lowered into the dirt before he ran, blindly, clawing at the tie that seemed to be choking the life out of him. Behind him, he heard Bucky’s footsteps following, but suddenly they faded and he was alone, hidden far from anyone. He didn’t know what had happened. He didn’t care. He curled up in the tiny bubble of space and sobbed like his heart would break, like it already had.  
He stayed there a long time. And when he finally emerged from the woods, feet tapping on an old stone bridge, there was Bucky waiting for him.  
“C’mon,” he said quietly. “Ma’s waiting.”  
And that’s how Steve Rogers came to live with the Barnes family. With Bucky, and his gaggle of little sisters. And with Winifred, a Squib who’d seen her own son’s power show itself not long before, and now had to explain magic and wizards and a whole new world to a sickly, grieving little boy.  
She handled it admirably well.  
The boys got their letters on the same day – a couple of weeks before Steve’s eleventh birthday, a couple of weeks after Bucky’s. They arrived one Monday morning on the doorstep, along with a discreet note addressed to Winifred about the Hogwarts fund for poorer students. The boys danced around the living room, laughing with joy, until Bucky had to run for Steve’s inhaler.  
The great grey owl that had delivered the envelopes soared away, and tiny Rebecca Barnes watched it go with a grin wide enough to split her face.


	2. It's A Whole New World That We're In

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Diagon Alley! Wands!

Diagon Alley was the most amazing thing Steve had ever seen. They entered through an old pub, which looked as though it hadn’t changed in a hundred years and would still look the same in another hundred. Heads turned as they entered, and Steve itched to dig out his sketchbook and get everything down in graphite – the walls, the faces, the strange clothes.  
Winifred murmured something to the bartender, and Steve tuned back in. “. . . a Squib,” she was saying. “I can’t do the spell.”  
The man nodded and led them back through the shop to a blank brick wall. He pulled a stick from his pocket and tapped a single brick, muttering under his breath.  
And the wall moved.  
The bricks slid and ground past each other, pulling away from the place the man’s stick had touched. Steve felt his eyes widen. He shot a glance at Bucky, whose mouth had dropped open in amazement.  
“How does that work?” he was saying.  
“’S magic,” said the bartender gruffly as the brick twisted into an arch.  
“Yeah, but how does it work?”  
“There’s layers of spells. Ah . . . Alohomora. Movement charms. Transfiguration. Bit of illusion - Muggles can’t see it even when it’s moving.”  
“Muggles?” Steve asked.  
“Non-magic people,” said Winifred, shepherding them through the archway.  
“Like me, you mean?” After the day of his mother’s funeral, nothing untoward had happened to Steve at all. He was starting to think he’d imagined it.  
The bartender shrugged. “You can see the arch, can’t you?”  
Steve grinned. “I suppose so.”  
They spent a long time in Diagon Alley. They’d brought a wooden handcart with them, which the two boys took turns towing along the cobblestones, and as the afternoon wore on it grew heavier and heavier. Long black robes, from a little corner shop called Madame Ellery’s Second-Hand Uniforms. Small cauldrons on three-legged stands. Textbooks, for subjects with strange names: Transfiguration, Charms, Defense Against The Dark Arts. Steve, flipping through the pages of this last as he walked, felt a shiver of excitement.  
Finally, there was only one thing more. Winifred led them towards a wide, imposing shopfront with the word “Ollivander’s” scrawled in curly gold cursive across the window.  
“What’s this place, Ma?” Bucky asked.  
“Ollivander’s wand makers,” said Winifred. “Old family business – same name for hundreds of years. Friends of my father’s.”  
“Wands?” Steve felt his eyes get wide again. “Wow . . .”  
Winifred pushed open the door.  
Ollivander’s was dark and rather dusty. Steve coughed, and Bucky was immediately at his shoulder. “Do you need –“  
“I’m fine, Buck.”  
Movement, at the back of the shop. An old man emerged, scuttling like a beetle on two sticks. He peered closely at the boys, and then at Winifred.  
“Off to Hogwarts, are we?” he said. His voice was surprisingly musical for such an old man.  
“Yes, sir,” said Steve politely.  
“Be wanting wands, I suppose.”  
Winifred nodded.  
“Well, then.” The old man turned, began to hobble away. “You, with the dark hair . . . follow me.”  
Bucky hurried after him. Steve watched him go, until they turned round a corner of shelves and were lost to view.  
Soon there was muttering, and the thud of something falling over. More muttering, another thud. Muttering again. And then an Almighty, cascading crash, a cry of fright.  
_Bucky!_  
Steve went to dash into the dark shop, but Winifred caught his shoulder. “It’s alright, Stevie,” she said. “Ollivander won’t let him get hurt.”  
Sure enough, Bucky emerged not long after, grinning widely and clutching a long, thin box. “This is amazing, punk,” he whispered to Steve.  
Winifred clipped him upside the head. “Language, James!”  
Steve was still laughing as he followed the old man deeper into the shop.  
They rounded a corner into a room walled by more shelves, all of them packed to overflowing with narrow boxes. The old man selected a box, passed it to Steve.  
Inside, there was a long, thin piece of polished wood. Steve stared, half-expecting it to move, or light up, or give off sparks.  
“Well, what are you waiting for?” said the old man. “Give it a wave!”  
Tentatively, Steve did so, and felt something invisible shoot from the end of the wand and smash into a shelf. Boxes flew everywhere.  
Steve gasped. “Gosh, sorry!”  
The old man ignored the mess. “Not that one,” he mumbled. “Let’s see . . . try this.”  
He collected another box from the tumbled pile. The wand inside was longer, made of shining black wood. Steve pointed it away from anything important-looking and flourished it in the air.  
This time the explosion was bigger. A lamp caught in the blast wobbled and smashed on the floor, and Steve nearly dropped the wand as it jerked in his hand.  
“Hmm, definitely not,” said the old man, unfazed. “What about this?”  
He passed over a third box. This wand was a deep, rich brown, about a foot long. Steve waved it somewhat apprehensively, but no explosion came: instead, a light glowed at the wand’s tip, and trailed behind as he swung it through the air.  
“Marvellous,” said the old man. “It seems this wand has chosen you. Hmm, fourteen inches mahogany and dragon heartstring, fairly rigid. A warrior’s wand.”  
“Really?” Steve was starting to feel a little overwhelmed.  
The old man didn’t answer. He scuttled off towards the front of the shop, Steve hurrying in his wake.  
“What’s yours like?” Bucky whispered, as Winifred paid the man with unfamiliar coins.  
Steve opened the box to show him. “Mahogany and, um, dragon heartstring,” he said. “What’s yours?”  
Bucky opened his own box. The wand inside was marbled grey and black, a little longer than Steve’s.  
“Ash and phoenix feather,” he said. “Seventeen inches, apparently.”  
“Do you know how to use it?”  
Bucky shook his head. “I’m just as new at this as you are, Steve. Ma said she’d box our ears if we tried anything at home.”  
“Aw . . .” Steve trailed, disappointed, behind the other two as they left. “We could try anyway, right?”  
“Yeah – we’ll be careful about it. When no-one’s looking.”  
“Oh, no, you will not!” snapped Winifred, who’d heard every word. “D’you want to be expelled from Hogwarts before you even get there?”  
Steve and Bucky shut up, looking suitably chastened.


	3. Have Another Dream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a train is boarded, Peggy and Howard appear, and Every Flavour Beans are eaten.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No-one's guessed any of the titles yet! C'mon, guys...

The days went by fast. It seemed no time at all before they had to leave, and that was a day of mad scrambling, of tossing books and clothes willy-nilly into trunks, and tipping everything out to pack again, properly. Steve lost his asthma medication, prompting a frantic search until it was discovered in Bucky’s trunk by mistake. Bucky almost turned the house upside down looking for a Charms textbook that he swore he’d only taken out to read last night – it was eventually found in the kitchen. Finally, though, they were both ready, with their trunks loaded onto the handcart and Steve refusing to let anyone help him pull it. The girls were left with a neighbour to watch, and Steve, Bucky and Winifred set off walking to King’s Cross.  
Platform 93/4, the tickets said. Steve had asked about that, but all Winifred had said was, “You’ll find out when we get there.” He and Bucky had discussed it endlessly, late at night. Secret underground station? Illusion, like the wall in Diagon Alley? Invisible train – that was Steve’s favourite theory. Bucky had wondered if it flew.  
“Steve, don’t be silly,” Winifred had said as they hurried down the street. “Let James take the cart.”  
“I’ve got it,” said Steve, stumbling as the cart caught in a rut between two cobblestones. Bucky caught one side of the handle, bumping his shoulder against Steve’s.  
“We’ve both got it.”  
King’s Cross wasn’t far, and they made good time even with the heavy trunks. Steve stared around the platforms, hunting for 93/4, but it didn’t seem to exist. Platform 9 and Platform 10 sat alongside each other, with nothing but a brick pillar separating them.  
“Where is it?” he whispered to Bucky.  
“I don’t know!”  
“Well,” said Winifred, “follow me.” And with that, she walked straight towards the pillar and disappeared into the brick.  
“Ma?” Bucky let go of the handcart, hurried forward a few steps. “Ma, where did you go?”  
“In there, I think,” said Steve, pointing to the pillar and trying not to feel nervous. Just then, Winifred’s head popped back out of the brickwork, and both boys jumped.  
“C’mon, you two,” she said. “Walk straight at the pillar. You’ll go right through.”  
She disappeared again. Steve and Bucky looked at each other, took hold of the cart’s handles and stepped forwards.  
Walking through the bricks felt strange and slightly chilly, like walking through a waterfall. Steve’s hand tightened on the handle. Before them spread the hurry and bustle of Platform 93/4, filled with children – some wearing robes, some normal clothes – and their parents, pushing carts or lugging heavy trunks. Many carried owls in cages, or had cats riding on their trunks or padding alongside their feet. The air was filled with the babble of hundreds of voices.  
At the centre of it all was the train. It was huge, painted a shiny dark red and patterned with gold chasing. The funnel leaked steam.  
They walked up to the middle of the train, and Winifred hugged them both and ruffled their hair. “Don’t forget to write to me,” she said. “Get one of your teachers to tell you about owl mail. And please don’t go getting into any more fights than you absolutely have to.”  
Steve smiled and hugged her back, and together the boys clambered onto the train. She hefted their trunks up after them, adding, “Make sure Stevie takes his medicine, James!” as she passed up Bucky’s. “I love you both.”  
Inside, the train was divided into compartments, linked by a long corridor. The boys wandered down the length of it until they reached an empty one, with long bench seats on either side and a wide window.  
The train jerked and began to pull away. Bucky hurried to the window, and Steve followed suit. There was Winifred, standing by the abandoned handcart and waving a handkerchief. The boys hung out the window and waved madly back until she was out of sight.  
A voice from the doorway startled them. “Mind if we join you?”  
Steve turned. Two people stood in the doorway – a well-dressed, wavy-haired girl and a short, slim boy with a mischievous face. “Uh, alright,” said Steve, at the same time as Bucky said, “Sure.”  
The other two sat down opposite them. Steve could feel the level of awkwardness rising.  
Bucky broke the tension.  
“Bullseye?” he asked, producing a bag from his pocket and offering it around.  
Steve took one, and so did the girl. The boy looked puzzled.  
“From actual bulls?” he said, frowning.  
Steve shook his head. “No, it’s a sweet. You know . . . sugar? Don’t wizards have sweets?”  
“Not that sort, no,” said the boy, taking one. His eyes widened. “But we will, as soon as I can work out how to replicate it. This is seriously good.”  
The others laughed. “Who are you, anyway?” Bucky asked.  
“Howard. Howard Stark. Pleased to meet you, and thank you for the . . . uh . . . bull’s ball?”  
“Bullseye,” corrected the girl, covering up the sound of Steve and Bucky choking on their own sweets. “I’m Peggy Carter.”  
She held out a hand and Steve shook it, slightly taken aback. “Steve Rogers.”  
“And you?”  
“James Barnes – call me Bucky.”  
“So . . . looking forward to Hogwarts?” Howard asked, words slightly garbled by the bullseye. “What house d’you think you’ll be in?”  
“Houses?” That was Steve and Bucky, at the same time.  
“Wow,” said Howard, “you are green.”  
“Shut up, Stark,” said Peggy, easily. “You’re Muggleborns, aren’t you? Non-magic parents,” she added.  
“I think so,” said Steve. “Never met my dad.”  
“My ma said she was a . . . Squib, I think,” added Bucky.  
“Well, there’s four houses,” said Howard, leaning back. “Gryffindor are the brave ones, Hufflepuff are the loyal ones, Ravenclaw are the smart ones and Slytherin are the sneaky ones.”  
“It’s a bit more complicated than that,” said Peggy, “but my brother says the Hat does a song to explain it. You’ll find out when we get there.”  
Steve was getting a little tired of hearing that, but there were more important things. “Wait,” he said, frowning. “There’s a hat that sings?”  
Howard laughed. “Apparently.”  
Bucky shook his head. “This magic thing is bloody weird.”  
The train was rattling through green fields now, with a few houses visible on the hills. Steve turned sideways in his seat and propped his sketchbook on his knee – he’d been given a new set of coloured pencils for his birthday, and he wanted to try them out. Bucky had leaned his head against the window, gazing out at the rushing scenery, and it was too good an opportunity to miss.  
They were good pencils, and Bucky was used to being sketched – he stayed still, staring out the window. Soon, Steve was absorbed in his drawing. He didn’t notice Peggy crossing the compartment to sit beside him, or Howard leaning forward in his seat, watching avidly.  
He was pulled out of his sketching reverie by the rattle of wheels at the door. “Want to buy anything?” called a voice.  
Steve looked up. A woman stood in the doorway, one hand on a shining metal cart piled high with . . . nothing Steve recognised. He had no money, anyway.  
Howard jumped up and hurried over to the cart. He paid with several of the odd bronze wizard coins and returned clutching a large paper bag of what looked like jelly beans.  
“Behold, Muggleborns!” he announced. “Wizard sweets!”  
“Sit down, you silly git,” said Peggy, grinning.  
Howard ignored her, and offered the bag around.  
Steve shook his head. “I’m fine, thanks.” He didn’t like being given things. He had no way to pay back the favour, and he preferred to make his own way.  
“C’mon!” said Howard. “You too, Becky. They’re Every Flavour Beans, I’ll feel embarrassed eating them by myself.”  
“What are they like?” asked Bucky, taking one.  
“Don’t know!” said Howard cheerfully. “Never had them before. They’ve only just been invented.”  
Steve took one. It was pale green, and had a pleasant apple flavour. Bucky, however, screwed his face up after a single nibble. “Sour . . .” he managed.  
Howard waved the bag at Peggy. “Come on, Peggy-my-girl!”  
“Not your girl, Stark,” said Peggy, but she took a bean. “Mmm, raspberry.”  
Howard had one himself . . . and immediately spat it out. “Gah, they really _do_ mean every flavour!” He shuddered. “I think that was pond slime.”  
That took the edge off Steve’s enthusiasm for the Every Flavour Beans, but not enough to stop him trying another one, which turned out to be salt. Bucky got a coffee-flavoured bean, Peggy a toothpaste, and Howard a bright yellow one that he swore was pineapple.  
Steve, who had no idea what a pineapple was, refrained from commenting.  
Peggy had been looking at the half-finished sketch in Steve’s book. “You’re not a bad artist, you know, Rogers,” she said.  
Steve ducked his head and began to mutter something, but Bucky shook his shoulder. “Shut up and thank her, punk. We all know you’re good, quit acting modest.”  
“Nick off, jerk,” Steve grinned, earning himself a playful cuff on the ear. “Thanks, Peggy.”  
“Hey, you should draw Stark,” she said. “Might make him sit still for five minutes together.”  
“Okay.” Steve retrieved sketchbook and pencils. Howard would be a good challenge, with his loose clothing, bright face and cock-eyed grin. Peggy watched him as he drew, and he found himself stealing glances away from his sketchbook to look at her. Howard and Bucky chattered quietly about engineering, of all things, with Howard quizzing Bucky about Muggle vehicles and Bucky wondering whether magic could actually make a car fly.  
The train rocked on into the darkening evening.  
Finally, it was too dark for Steve to see the paper anymore, and someone was knocking on their compartment wall. He looked up. An older girl stood in the doorway, wearing a green and silver tie and black robes with a badge on the chest.  
“First-years?” she asked. Without waiting for a reply, she continued, “Better get your robes on. We’re nearly there.”  
She withdrew, and they could hear her knocking on the wall of the next compartment along. Steve put down the sketchbook and began digging in his trunk for the black robes that were apparently uniform at Hogwarts.  
“So, do they just go on over our clothes, or what?” Bucky was asking.  
“Yep,” said Peggy, already pulling on her own robes.  
Pretty soon they were all dressed, and Steve was trying his hardest not to feel awkward. Peggy and Howard’s robes were clearly new and fitted them perfectly, while Steve was uncomfortably aware that his own were faded and slightly too long, even after Winifred had re-hemmed them. He told himself that he was being silly, that it didn’t matter how old his robes were so long as they were clean and respectable – just like his mother had always said – but it didn’t really help.  
By his face, Bucky felt the same way. He was tugging at his sleeves, trying to pull them down over his wrists.  
Howard lifted his trunk down from the luggage rack, wobbling under the weight. Hesitantly, Steve moved towards Peggy.  
“Do you need a hand?” he asked.  
Peggy looked over at him and smiled, not unkindly. “No, but thanks for offering.” She turned away and lifted her trunk down in one smooth movement – certainly more gracefully than Howard had managed.  
Feeling slightly chastened, although no telling-off had taken place, Steve turned to his own trunk. He’d wedged it under the seat, rather than ask Bucky to help him lift it.  
The train rattled to a stop. Steve looked out the window, but it was fully dark outside and his eyesight wasn’t the best. He could find no clue as to where they were.  
They left the compartment, towing their trunks behind them. Howard’s had little wheels on the base, Steve noticed. Good idea. He struggled to tow his own over the carpet, and felt a hand grip the handle next to his, helping him. He opened his mouth to thank Bucky, but it wasn’t him. It was Peggy.  
Outside, the air was chilly, and Steve was grateful for the thick robes. He felt Bucky’s arm go round him, sharing their body heat as they’d done a hundred times before, and found himself smiling widely.  
“First-years this way!” called a voice. That was them, Steve supposed.  
They hurried after the voice, joining a small crowd of kids their age who were gathered around a tall, dark-skinned man. “That all of you?” he was saying, and his finger skipped in a fast headcount. “Right, off we go.”  
The man lead them towards . . . a lake? “This place is underwater?” Steve muttered to Bucky, but then he saw the fleet of little boats waiting at the lake’s edge.  
They ended up wedged into the same boat. With the four of them plus trunks, it was a tight fit, and Steve found himself in the stern, sitting more on Bucky’s lap than not.  
“How do these _move_?” Bucky asked Howard, who’d perched himself in the bow, staring down at the dark water rushing past the keel.  
“I have no idea,” replied Howard, “but they’re _amazing_.”  
Almost before the words left his mouth, the boat swayed as _something_ passed underneath it. Howard, caught off-balance, gave a squeak and pitched face-first into the lake,  
The boat rocked wildly. Steve felt Bucky’s arm for round his chest, holding him safely in place like a seatbelt.  
But Peggy’s reflexes were even faster than Bucky’s. She lunged across the bow and caught the hem of Howard’s robe, hauling him back on board. He tumbled across Steve’s legs, setting water soaking through his trousers.  
There was silence for a moment as they all took it in. Peggy, crouched in the bow and not even breathing hard. Bucky, buried under the other two boys’ bodied. Steve, still wide-eyed with shock and amazement. And Howard, sprawled half in Steve’s lap and half in the bottom of the boat, dripping wet from the waist up.  
“Stark, you’re a twit,” said Peggy eventually, and that did it.  
They lost it. “I object!” shouted Howard, but he was laughing too hard to continue. Steve’s ribs ached. They were still giggling as the little fleet glided up to the shore and a massive building looked over them – a castle, windows glowing with candlelight.  
The tall man – a teacher, presumably – gave them a startled look. “What happened to you, kid?” he asked Howard.  
Which, of course, set them off again.  
The teacher raised an eyebrow, but didn’t question them further. Instead, he removed a wand from his pocket and pointed it at Howard, who flinched. Steve glanced over at Bucky, and knew his friend had seen it too. There was a story there, but it was Howard’s to tell. None of their business.  
“_Aridio_!” said the teacher, and instantly Howard’s clothes were dry. His hair stuck up in ruffled spikes, like the world’s worst bedhead.  
The teacher grinned and turned away, and the small mob of first-years followed him up the slope, towing their trunks behind them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We'll get into the Sorting next chapter. :)


	4. Our House, It Has A Crowd

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorting! Wahoo!
> 
> Sorry this is so late. Third term's been hectic and as it is now holidays, I have no internet access except at the library.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So . . . nobody's guessed any of the titles yet! C'mon, guys . . . I'm disappointed in you!
> 
> By the way, any HP-canon errors are because I haven't read the first book in years.

The teacher rapped twice on the huge castle doors, and they creaked open, letting out a blast of light, heat and noise. The mob of kids was shepherded in, and slowly the talking died away. Heads turned towards them.  
Steve looked around. They were in a huge hall, lit by hundreds of candles hovering near the ceiling. Four tables stretched the length of the hall, crowded with kids in black robes and odd pointed hats. “Leprechauns,” whispered Bucky, and that made Steve smile.  
At the end of the hall sat another table, this one peopled by adults. They were mostly middle-aged or older, and their robes were all different colours. The tall teacher left them and went to take his seat there, beside an elderly man in glasses. A woman walked forwards, carrying – for some reason – an ancient brown hat. She set it on a stool before the teachers’ table.  
“Welcome to Hogwarts!” she announced, and her voice filled the room.  
And then the hat moved.  
Once Steve got over his initial shock, he realised the folds and drooping fabric in the hat formed a rough face, with shadowed eyes and a wide mouth. It opened that mouth and began to sing.  
“When once this school was formed, I say,  
In times of long ago,  
The founders four set me the task  
(They thought that I would know)  
Of sorting students big and small  
Into each House of theirs.  
This job I’ve performed – on this day –  
For many, many years.  
And though the future may be dark,  
My task I will perform,  
For we must stand united yet,  
Or else we shall be torn.  
But come! We must not think on such:  
The warning’s not yet due.  
The Houses four have qualities  
Which show themselves in you.  
Reckless Gryffindor, whose courage  
And daring mark their breed.  
These Gryffindors are stubborn, strong  
And brave in time of need.  
Proud Slytherin, whose students are  
Cunning and never slow  
To risk it all for greatness: these  
Children have far to go.  
True Hufflepuff, for whom patience  
And hard work hold no fear.  
These loyal, gentle folk fiercely  
Defend what they hold dear.  
Wise Ravenclaw: intelligence  
Is what is valued there.  
Or wonder, curiosity  
Or a creative flair.  
These Houses each bring to our school  
The qualities of one  
That many need – but I digress!  
Sorting must be begun!

There was a pause. No-one spoke. The hat sat on its stool, bowing its tip to the four corners of the room, and someone at the teachers’ table began to applaud. The tables of students joined in, and then the first-years, but through the confusion Steve noticed a red-bearded man at the centre of the table lean over to speak with the man in glasses.  
“As I call your name,” said the woman as the clapping died away, “you will come and take a seat on this stool, and I will place the Hat on your head. Once you are Sorted, please hurry to your House table.” She grinned, and suddenly seemed much more personable. “You’ll know which one it is: they’ll be the ones screaming.” She pulled a slip of paper from her sleeve, removed the Hat from the stool. “Abernathy, Faith.”  
A short, thin-faced girl came forwards and took a seat. The woman lowered the Hat towards her curls.  
“Hufflepuff!” shouted the Hat the moment it touched her head. The girl jumped, and then looked pleased. A table on the left erupted in cheers, and she hurried off to join them.  
Next was Awling, Alfred – a tall, gawky boy with freckles. The Hat paused for a few seconds before shouting, “Gryffindor!”  
“Barnes, James.”  
Steve felt Bucky’s arm tighten around his shoulders for a moment before falling away. The other boy grinned at Steve and walked towards the stool.  
There was a pause, which stretched into a long silence. The Hat moved as if speaking, but Steve couldn’t hear a word. Eventually, it straightened and opened its fabric mouth.  
“Ravenclaw!”  
A cheer Rose from a table to the right, and Bucky hurried off towards it. The woman called the next name. “Carter, Margaret.”  
Peggy strolled away, and the Hat didn’t deliberate for long before making her a Slytherin. “The sneaky ones,” Steve remembered Howard saying. The far left table cheered.  
Steve tuned out a little as Dugan, Timothy was made a Gryffindor. He looked around the hall, trying to take everything in. The ceiling looked as if it was open to the sky, but it couldn’t be. There was no draught, and while the sky outside had been clouded, this one was sparkling clear. Illusion again, Steve guessed. The candles that flickered against it hovered high in the air, nothing visible holding them up at all.  
What had the Hat meant by, “or else we shall be torn”? That sounded ominous. Was there a fight coming, something they needed to prepare for? Or was it just a general statement, telling everyone to stick together? It didn’t seem like that, though . . . it seemed serious.  
He felt Howard poke him in the side, and realised the woman had called his name.  
Flushed with embarrassment, he made his way to the stool and sat, feet dangling just above the floor. The Hat was lowered onto his head and for a horrible moment he thought it was going to keep sliding all the way down to his shoulders, but it caught on his ears and teetered precariously for a moment before settling.  
“Well,” said a scratchy voice, “here’s a puzzle.”  
Steve frowned. What was wrong? Was the Hat going to say that he oughtn’t to be here after all? He wouldn’t let them send him away. He wouldn’t leave Bucky.  
“What is it, sir?” he asked. Sarah Rogers had raised a polite son, and Winifred had carried on her work, and just because it was a talking hat was no reason to be rude.  
The Hat laughed. “Calls me sir!” it wheezed, and then continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “There’s ambition there. Plenty of it. You want to prove yourself, don’t you? Slytherin would do well by you. But . . . hmm. There’s nothing you wouldn’t do for your friends, is there?”  
“Not much, sir,” Steve answered. He wasn’t sure if he’d said it out loud or just thought it, but the Hat seemed to understand him anyway.  
“You could fit right into Hufflepuff, then. But you’re not exactly patient . . . in fact, you’re spoiling for a fight, aren’t you. You’re stubborn, reckless, want to stand up for everybody.” The Hat hummed, considering. “I think . . . on the balance . . . might as well be Gryffindor!”  
The last word was shouted. The woman pulled the Hat off his head and as normal sound returned, he heard the far right table burst into cheering.  
He wasn’t with Bucky. He was eleven years old, he could deal with that. Howard had said the Houses each had their own dormitories, but they’d see each other during the day, in class, all the time.  
But . . . it would be strange, not to wake up in the night and see Bucky asleep on the other side of the room. Strange, not to crawl into the same bed for warmth in winter.  
He sat down on the bench at the Gryffindor table as the woman called, “Stark, Howard.” The Hat considered for quite some time, but eventually Howard was sent to Ravenclaw. Steve watched as the other boy sat down next to Bucky and the two began talking cheerfully.  
Bucky caught Steve’s eye and his hands moved – sign language. They’d learnt it when an ear infection had left Steve temporarily deaf, and it made a pretty good secret code. Steve squinted to read his fingers.  
_GRFND, hey?_ Bucky was saying. Steve assumed he meant Gryffindor. Stubborn, reckless. Sounds about right.  
_Jerk_, signed Steve.  
_Punk_. Bucky turned, said something to Howard, and looked back at Steve. _H just asked what magic we doing._  
Steve laughed, making several of the kids at his table look at him oddly. _Tell him very advanced. He couldn’t do._  
Bucky winked. _I did._  
Finally, the last two first-years – Woolsey, Columba and Young, Mary-Anne – were sorted into Hufflepuff and Slytherin respectively. The woman carried the Hat and stool away, and the red-bearded man stood, tapping a fork on his goblet for silence. He was tall and well-built, and the hair just visible under his hat-brim was as red as his beard. When he spoke, it was with a Scottish accent.  
“Students of all shapes and sizes!” he announced. “Big ones, wee ones, old and new ones . . . welcome to Hogwarts!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I sorted Steve into Gryffindor. I'll happily explain all my Sorting choices if necessary. ;) And no, the Headmaster isn't Dumbledore.


	5. And Now The Day Bleeds Into Nightfall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mainly a filler chapter, sorry. Steve settles in and draws pretty pictures.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, first off, I apologise. Things have been hectic as, well, heck what with school and theatre, but exams are next week and so's the show so after that I should be able to post properly. I've actually had this chapter written for a while and haven't had time to type it up. Secondly, congratulations to Sirginger, who is the first to correctly identify a song. Yes, the main title is from Crossfire by Stephen (such a Bucky song, I love it). Ginger, for some reason I can't reply to your comment, so if you'd drop me another one with your request I'll work it in. (Warning, anything involving the other Avengers won't show up for a long while yet.)  
Guys, all the other titles are still fair game.

The food was incredible, and there was so much of it Steve couldn’t hide his shock. He ate until he could hold no more, and realised he’d forgotten what it was like to be really full. When everyone was done, the plates vanished, cutlery, leftovers and all. Steve jumped when they disappeared, but he wasn’t the only first-year to do so. The older kids began to rise, and Steve and the others followed suit.  
“Gryffindors, this way,” called a redheaded girl with a badge on her chest. The rest of the table began to file off after her. Around the room, Steve could see the other tables rising as well, heading towards various doors around the hall.  
The Gryffindors followed the redheaded girl out a door to the right of the hall. They trooped down corridors and up stairs, the older kids chattering among themselves. Everything was illuminated by the flickering light of the candles set in sconces along the walls, filling the hallways with a warm yellow glow.  
Steve tried as best he could to keep track of the twists and turns – his sense of direction was pretty good, always had been – but even he was starting to get lost. It didn’t help that the staircases seemed to be rearranging themselves, always just out of sight, so he wasn’t sure if it was actually happening or not.  
His suspicions were confirmed when, as the mob of black-clad students climbed yet another stair, it swung beneath their feet, stretching and warping towards a higher landing. The older students seemed unruffled, but there were gasps from the first-years. Some hurried to the bannisters to look down into the gap. Steve stayed put, shoving down a wave of nausea: it was like some amusement park attraction of the kind he never wanted to ride, like the Cyclone he’d seen once, and which Bucky had sworn he’d take him on someday.  
The staircase reached the upper landing. “Thank you,” said the girl, and led the way off the steps and through a wooden door. The door led into a large room, with a thick carpet on the floor and armchairs and small tables around the walls. A fire blazed in a hearth, and the whole room was cosy and pleasantly stuffy.  
The girl stopped in the middle of the room and gestured to several doors set into the walls. “First-years, dormitories are upstairs. Girls on the left, boys on the right.” She yawned. “Off you go.”  
The first-years split off towards the doors they’d been shown. The right-hand exit led to another set of stairs, steep and spiraling upwards, and Steve guessed they were in one of the towers. Eventually, they came to a section of corridor with several doors set into the wall, each with a list of names tacked to the wood. They were fairly high up, and the door with Steve’s name was the highest, which was going to be difficult. Steve’s chest was already tightening from the climb, although he didn’t need to pull out his inhaler just yet.  
Inside the room was another fireplace, with coals flickering in the grate, and four canopied beds. They were bigger than any bed Steve had ever seen, and each had a trunk lying on the mattress. Steve recognised his on a bed by the wall and hurried over.  
He heaved the trunk off the bed. He’d been trying to lift it, but his grip slipped and it tumbled. The floor was thickly carpeted, though, and the trunk landed with nothing more than a soft thud.  
Steve climbed onto the bed, which sank underneath him. Wow. This was a far cry from his bed at the Barnes home, or from the trundle bed he’d slept on when he was small, which had tucked away under his mother’s bed when not in use.  
He grinned as he remembered all the times Bucky had complained about Steve kicking him in his sleep. This bed was large enough to fit both Steve and Bucky comfortably, twice over . . . but Bucky wasn’t here, was he?  
Steve shoved down the pang of homesickness and busied himself hunting in the trunk for his pyjamas. The other three boys assigned to his dorm had arrived now, and were digging in their own trunks.  
“Hey,” said one of them, looking up. He had a soft voice, with some kind of lilting accent – Welsh? “I suppose that if we’re going to be spending seven years sleeping in the same room, we might as well know each other’s names. I’m Edmund.”  
“Are you just?” drawled a bigger boy. “What’s your last name?”  
“Ah . . . Aldridge,” said Edmund, looking bemused. “Lumos,” he added. Light shone from the tip of his wand and he set it on a table, letting it illuminate the room.  
The big kid snorted. “I might have known.”  
Steve frowned and opened his mouth, but before he could say anything the fourth kid in the dorm spoke up, in the tired voice of a peacemaker. “I’m Calvin. Calvin Cochran,” he added, shooting a glance at the big boy. “And you are?”  
The question was directed at Steve. “Ah . . . Steve. Steve Rogers.” He looked over at the bigger boy – maybe he hadn’t meant to sound so dismissive. He was probably homesick, like the rest of them. “How about you?”  
The big kid rolled his eyes, and Steve revised his estimations. “Hodge. Gilmore Hodge.” He looked around like he was expecting them all to be incredibly impressed, and scowled when he realised they weren’t. he sat on his bed and pulled the curtains around him with very bad grace.  
Another thing Steve was confused by. Why did the beds have curtains? They weren’t windows.  
Aldridge and Cochran exchanged a look, and went back to their trunks. Steve found his pyjamas and immediately realised the purpose of the curtains. He got changed behind their screen and pulled them open again, feeling a little uncomfortable sleeping in their stuffy closeness.  
Cochran and Aldridge were talking in low voices, but Steve’s dicky ears couldn’t pick up the actual words. There was no sound from Hodge’s bed, and he hadn’t reopened his curtains either. What was his problem, Steve wondered.  
Aldridge had put out his wand’s glow, and the moonlight poured in through tall, slitted windows, painting the room in shades of blue and silver. Outside, the castle grounds spread to a tangled forest, dark under the full moon.  
Steve watched the light and breeze playing on the branches of a young willow in the courtyard – no, that wasn’t right, was it? There was no breeze. The tree moved by itself.  
Aldridge and Cochran’s conversation died away. Steve, absorbed in watching the moving tree, forgot his tiredness – or rather, accepted that he wasn’t going to manage much in the way of sleep. He was too excited, and everything was too new and unfamiliar. Instead, he found his sketchbook and moved to the window, perching on the ledge in the bright moonlight.  
He drew the room and the sleeping shapes of the other boys, sketched messily in pale blues and greys. He drew the willow, and the forest outside, and the red-bearded man from the feast – the Headmaster. He drew Howard, leaning eagerly over the prow of a boat. He drew the Hogwarts train, steaming its way through a winding valley. He drew Peggy, the Sorting Hat hiding her eyes in deep shadow, and then began on a portrait of Bucky, of his cheerful excitement last night, propped on his elbows in bed with the blankets half-tented over his head and a book open in front of him, grinning at Steve in the candlelight.  
He wondered how Bucky was going. Hopefully he was asleep – Steve was pretty sure his friend hadn’t slept at all last night. He found himself chuckling, quietly, at what he’d just thought: usually Bucky was the mother-hen of the two, and now here was Steve, taking his role.  
And at some point he fell asleep, curled on the window-ledge, sketchbook open on his lap and pencil still clutched in one hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, there are probably so many glaring errors in this. Feel free to point them out and I'll either try and fix them or start sulking. Either or. :)  
For your information, Hodge and Aldridge are pureblood, Cochran is half-blood and Steve is Muggleborn. I wanted to play with blood politics a bit. Fun!


End file.
